Wednesday, May 07, 2014

Pizza Dough with Italian Flour

Since I have an excellent scale for weighing food ingredients, I love it when baking recipes give dry ingredients by weight. It is much more precise than cups and tablespoons and that usually makes the finished product better. It is also easy, if you have a scale that tares back to O to weight the bowl, go to zero, weigh the first ingredient in the bowl, go to zero, weight the next ingredient right on top of the first, in the bowl, and so on. Once you are done, all the ingredients are exactly what is called for and all are in the bowl, ready for the rest of the recipe.

This recipe is one I found in the food section of our local newspaper, the Press Democrat. The dough makes two 12-inch pizzas and is ready to work with in about 4-5 hours, so pizza can be on the table in less than 5.5 hours. You can start the dough before work and stash it in the fridge until you get home, set it out at room temp. to warm up, then make the pizza, with the pies being ready to eat about an hour after you took the dough out of the fridge. Excellent! It uses Italian OO flour, a very fine wheat flour. I think that gave the crust just a bit of extra chewiness. It is tasty crust, too.

For toppings I went with a jarred tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella sliced and torn into pieces, a scatter of shredded mozzarella, a sprinkle of dried oregano and basil and garlic powder, some crumbled bacon and a sprinkle of olive oil, then grated Parmesan. It was delicious and cheesy. For the second pizza I spread on some pesto, added crumbled bacon, shredded and fresh mozzarella, a spritz of olive oil and some grated Parmesan. Sweetie really like this one! The bacon was used because the pepperoni slices I thought were in the deli drawer turned out to be gone. Still, bacon is good on anything and it was true here, too.

This meal was completed with a very large serving of a mixed kale, broccoli slaw, shaved Brussels sprouts and radicchio salad with poppy seed dressing, pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries. Strangely enough, it went well together. Such is the menu when some of the kitchen cabinets are being torn out. The dough was made the day before and safely stashed in the fridge. Even though the cabinet and counter to the left of the stove was gone by dinnertime, we still had the stove, so pizza was a great choice. I did shape the dough into smaller shapes than 12-inches in diameter, so next time I'll work a little harder at getting the shape larger and the crust thinner, but otherwise this was great pizza!

Have gotten to the fun time of picking out the wall paint. So far a light blue green seems to be the favorite choice. It has gray in it too. Very soft and comforting somehow. Funny how color can evoke so many emotions. Should be interesting to see what we end up with. I'll keep you posted.

To a faithful reader: Deb, hope you did something wonderful with the eggs. Our neighbor is so glad that you have them.

In a small mixing bowl stir together 200 milliliters (about
1 cup) lukewarm tap water, the yeast and the olive oil, then pour the mixture
into the flour mixture. (I put the active dry yeast into the water, let it sit
5 minutes to hydrate, then added the olive oil, whisked and added the mix to
the flour mixture.)

Knead with your hands until well combined, approximately 3
minutes. Let the mixture rest for 15 minutes.

Knead the rested dough on a lightly floured surface for 3
minutes. Cut into 2 equal pieces and shape each into a ball. Place on a heavily
floured surface, cover with a dampened cloth, and let rest and rise for 3-4
hours at room temperature or for 8-24 hours in the fridge. (If you refrigerate
the dough, let it rest at room temperature for 30 - 45 minutes before you begin
to shape it for pizza.)

To make pizza, place each dough ball on a heavily floured
surface and use your fingers to stretch it, then your hands to shape it into
rounds or squares. Top and bake.

Note: Measurements for dry ingredients are given by weight
for greater accuracy. The equivalent
measurements by volume are approximate.

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